Books for a Better Life Award Inspirational Memoir winners

I think most people have heard of the inspiring Carnegie Mellon professor who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and gave the incredibly inspiring lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” This last lecture wasn’t about dying, it was about living. Thousands of people saw the Last Lecture on YouTube and became so touched by this incredible man, and his book is filled with the same intelligence, humor and indomitable spirit as Professor Pausch’s exalting lecture.

The noted neurologist Oliver Sacks says that this is “the most lucid and hopeful memoir of living with schizophrenia that I have ever read.” This is a profoundly moving memoir of the author’s battle with schizophrenia. The author is a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Southern California. The title is borrowed from the line “center cannot hold,” from a William Butler Yeats poem entitled The Second Coming.

The author composed crystal-clear essays about her life after her husband sustains a traumatic brain injury after a hit-and-run accident. I think sometimes a reader may pick this book up and then put it back down because they fear the subject matter is going to be depressing... quite the contrary! This book sparkles with wit and observations about life in general and in the particular. Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.

This very gifted Washington Post writer weaves the true tale of him and his wife’s work at a Zimbabwe orphanage at the height of the AIDS crisis. This riveting book also tells of the Tucker's heroic efforts to save a baby girl and their struggle to adopt this child who has stolen their hearts. A heartwarming story about two people with limitless depths of love and compassion.